Testing GCC & OSDL (Was: RFC: Generated structure layout tests forgcc.dg/compat/struct-layout-1 (take 2))

[Laurent GUERBY <laurent at guerby dot net>]

On Wed, 2004-07-21 at 19:45, Mark Mitchell wrote:
> So, I think testing is good, but I think we should keep an eye on how 
> long it takes.  It might be that someone could run these tests nightly 
> instead of all of us running them all the time for a few weeks and we 
> could see how many errors we catch.  If it's more than zero, that would 
> strenghten the argument for using them all the time.

Would it be ok if someone (or me if no one knows directly OSDL people)
fills http://osdl.org/lab_activities/lab_projects/propose_a_project.html
in the name of the GCC project and ask for access to some machines to
set up some kind of GCC patch tester (bootstrap, testsuite plus may be a
few applications)?

IMHO, trying to keep the running time of a testsuite under tight
limits is not really the right thing to do, first it's hard or
impossible to do, and it wastes precious brain cycles that are very
likely to be useful on other tasks, without taking into account the
increased risk of unnoticed problems.

I prefer a set up where the only use for a local build is debugging
and all build & testing is done in a separate and controlled
environment, shared by everyone in the project and with
adequate ressources to do a much better job than local testing.

It would also be fair to all GCC developpers, even those who
cannot afford more than a 486SX with 2MB of RAM or
who don't work on a Free Software company with appropriate
ressources.

Laurent